Mayor of Krasnodar Yevgeny Naumov instructed to check all karaoke clubs in the city because of Verka Serdyuchka’s song “The Party”, which contains lines from the Ukrainian national anthem. The corresponding message was published by the press service of the city administration.
The reason for the check was an incident in one of the Krasnodar karaoke clubs “La Major”, where Serduchka’s song with the lines “Ukraine has not yet died” was played. Some visitors to the institution sang it, others filmed it on video. The video began to spread on social networks and caused outrage and the authorities.
As stated in the mayor’s office of Krasnodar, law enforcement agencies are engaged in checking. In the karaoke club itself, they explained the playback of the song with the words from the Ukrainian anthem by the fact that the sound engineer “did not have time to orientate himself.”
“We fundamentally do not allow guests to sing songs in Ukrainian at the club. The sound engineer did not have time to orientate himself with the song “Walking” by Verka Serduchka, since all the verses are sung in Russian and they are neutral in the text. As soon as the chorus sounded in Ukrainian with an unacceptable meaning, the song was stopped. Our sound engineer works part-time at weddings, where this song has been constantly sung for 20 years, so I turned it on automatically. Additional explanatory work has been carried out with the staff in order to prevent this from happening in the future, ”the manager of the institution said.
The footage that has spread over the network shows that three people in the club are performing the song “The Party” and, as it should be according to the text, they repeat the line from the anthem several times. Someone from the back rows is filming this, separately taking a monitor into the frame, on which lines “invalid” in meaning appear.
Verka Serdyuchka (real name of the artist is Andriy Danilko) has been banned from entering Russia since April last year, along with dozens of other Ukrainian performers supporting Kiev during the Russian military special operation.
At the same time, the song “Hulyanka” itself is not prohibited and is not listed in any registers.
The case in Krasnodar is not the first time that measures are being taken in Russia against an institution where Ukrainian music is played. At a wedding in Crimea, they danced to “Chervona Kalina”. The guests were arrested, the restaurant was closed Last weekend at the Arpat restaurant in Bakhchisarai, a magnificent wedding was celebrated, and… 14 September 11:42
So, in September last year, the restaurant “Arpat” was closed in the Crimean Bakhchisarai. The reason was a magnificent wedding, where the guests danced to “Chervona Kalina” – a Ukrainian folk song, which, after the start of the special operation, began to be called the unofficial anthem of the Azov Battalion (the organization is banned in Russia).
The dancing was filmed, it began to circulate on social networks, after which the authorities paid attention to it. Mayor of Bakhchisaray Arsen Ablaev spoke about the inappropriateness of celebrations of this nature.
“We all must support the state and provide maximum support to our military personnel. The head of the city administration decided to terminate the activities of this institution until the final proceedings, after which decisions will be made, ”said the head of administration.
According to the results of the check, not only the institution where the song was played, but also its guests were punished. The owner of the restaurant received 15 days of administrative arrest, the DJ and the dancer – 10 days each, and the mother of the groom – 5 days. The mother of the bride was fined 40,000 rubles.
The DJ said that he did not know about the nature of the song, and who used it. And he recommended to all colleagues, before putting music in an institution, to make sure that it does not have an extremist orientation.
In October 2022, the Tverskoy Court of Moscow imposed 15 days of arrest and a 50,000-ruble fine on local resident Anton Usov for listening to Ukrainian music in his own car. He was accused of discrediting the army and disobeying the police.
At the same time, Russian President Vladimir Putin, commenting on cases of detention for performing or playing songs in Ukrainian, called them unlawful.
“We resent attempts to abolish Russian culture and should not behave in the same way,” Putin said. In his opinion, such incidents are due to emotions.